by James Church
The vice minister looked sharply at me, warning me to keep quiet. He needn’t have worried. I was stunned, feeling sick. Pak had insisted I go back to the office. Now he was dead.
The Minister stared into space briefly, lost in thought. “Chief Inspector Pak will be irreplaceable. He was truly one of our foundation stones. I don’t know what we are going to do without him.” He stood up and walked around the desk so he was next to me. “There will be a tough investigation, and I mean very tough, over what happened this afternoon. The only reason you aren’t in custody right now is that I’ve personally intervened at the top.” The Minister turned to the vice minister. “Would you excuse us a moment?”
The vice minister raised a hand in protest, “Sir, I hardly think it would be proper—”
The Minister interrupted. “You let me worry about that. I’m asking you to leave my office so I can speak in private with the Inspector. Are you going to do so, or shall I have you thrown out?”
The vice minister’s face became a blank mask. He gave a wooden bow and moved across the carpet to the doorway. “I’ll be in my office,” he said to me, and then closed the doors with an ominously gentle touch.
The Minister leaned against his desk, looking even paler and more tired than he did when we walked in. “This is the end for me. But that’s not important. Things are happening. You can swim with the tide, Inspector, I won’t blame you. Or you can act. But you’ll have to make up your mind quickly.”
I glanced around the room. The Minister shook his head. “Don’t worry. This room is clean. They try every now and then, but whenever we find their handiwork, I raise hell and they have to remove everything. Then they have to start all over. I’m surprised the walls are still standing, they’ve drilled so many holes for their microphones. It has become almost a joke at the parties.”
“What happened to Pak?” I needed to know if he had been surprised or if he had surprised them.
“Pak and Kang were walking up the hill together. Six Military Security agents stepped out and ordered them to get on the ground. Pak drew his weapon and fired. He killed one of them before they shot him. Kang rolled behind some boulders and fled. They are looking for him now. My information is that you spent time with Kang on the border last week. It has also come to the attention of Military Security, believe me. This case with the dead Finn you’ve been investigating, it also has Military Security connections.”
“I realize that.”
“What you don’t realize is that things are moving at the top.” The Minister looked at his watch. “In about two hours, the leadership meets to discuss final details on clearing away some old mistakes. These were bad mistakes, horrendous mistakes, Inspector. They will snap their fingers, and someone will take the blame. That’s all I know, and now you know it. The vice minister hasn’t been told any of this, not from me, anyway. Still, he’s vibrating about something. He probably has his suspicions. Watch his tongue. It darts in and out like a snake’s. Maybe he can smell the fear in the wind.” The Minister put on a dark, well-tailored jacket and straightened his tie. “I have to go to a meeting. I may not be back.” He shrugged. “Someone might need this job to be vacant. The vice minister thinks he’s going to get it.” The Minister laughed, and some of the gauntness left his face. “He’s in for a surprise. If I am replaced this afternoon, you’re on your own, Inspector.” I stood up, and we shook hands. He stepped quickly through a side door, without glancing back.
10
There was a steady stream of military traffic on the streets, jeeps barreling past, heavy trucks in twos and threes driving so fast their engines were screaming. I’d decided there was no reason to see the vice minister. He wasn’t going to do me any favors. He and Pak had been enemies; now he was mine as well. He’d try to get rid of me if he could, but from what the Minister had said, Yun was going to have trouble just watching his own back. Without Pak or the Minister, my own back was none too safe, either, but if I kept a low profile in the middle of this political typhoon, no one would notice me, except Military Security. Kim had put me in his sights, but first he wanted Kang.
I needed to get rid of the pistol in my back pocket. I needed to get to Pak’s office before anyone else did, to look at his files. Riding my bicycle seemed like a bad idea—too many army vehicles with bad brakes going at high speed. It would take twenty minutes on foot, but I could go on the path by the river most of the way. The walk rarely was crowded, and I knew there were no patrols down there except at night, looking for drunks sleeping on the benches.
Walking gave me time to think. By the time I was nearing the office, I knew I had to forget the Finn. The Finn wasn’t important; his identity wasn’t important; in some ways, even his killer wasn’t important. What mattered to me was Pak. Why was he dead? It wasn’t an accident. It was almost as if he had set it up himself, part of a script he had written a long time ago but couldn’t play out until now. He had trusted Kang, he had helped Kang, and Kang left him to die. There must have been some bond between them. Maybe there was something in the papers Pak told me to get from his desk. I stopped and looked at the river. Pak was gone. Any bond he had with Kang had died with him. Kang was smooth. Kang was clever. Kang used people, but he wasn’t going to use me, not anymore. I needed to be alone with the man for just a few minutes. After he gave me some answers, I would deal with him.
The guard at the gate to our compound had been changed, but no one stopped me as I walked past. There were no cars parked outside. The street was deserted except for an old woman and a boy, who bounced a red ball against the compound’s wall.
The drawers on Pak’s desk were locked, but I knew he kept a key in the top drawer of his file cabinet. There was a pile of folders in the drawer. As I flipped through them, I saw they all concerned Koreans from Japan who had died over the years under suspicious circumstances. I recognized only one of the cases, a couple killed when their car was hit head on by an army truck that had crossed over the center line on the highway to Hyangsan. Two farmers had witnessed the collision. They said the truck didn’t even apply its brakes. The incident happened just inside our jurisdiction, and Pak had insisted that we start an investigation, even though we weren’t equipped to deal with traffic accidents. The day after I called around for information on the truck’s unit, Military Security moved in, took over, and told us to drop the case. They never shared their findings, but Pak found out through his own channels that the truck driver was not disciplined and, six months later, received a promotion.
We closed the case, and I forgot about it. Pak, it was clear, did not. He had kept the files active, feeding in bits and pieces of information, mostly from sources I’d never heard of. I dumped the folders back and dug around for the key. It was buried in a corner, under a pile of pamphlets from Japanese travel agencies. Folded up with them was the front page of an edition of the party newspaper from a year ago. It carried a government statement on improving relations with Japan. Pak had underlined a few sentences in pencil, and at the bottom of the statement he had written, “Reckoning.” There was another article, from a Japanese newspaper. I couldn’t read it, but there was a picture of a small boy holding a cat.
For all these years that Pak and I had worked together, sometimes seven days a week for months at a time, I had fooled myself into thinking we knew each other’s rhymes and rhythms perfectly. Yet here, in his desk, was evidence I didn’t know him very well after all. He never said anything about it, but all these years he had been focused on Japan. Why? “All hell is about to break loose,” that’s what he said to me on the phone. He hadn’t mentioned Japan, but Kang had. Solving “old problems” in return for overdue blood money. Pak was dead. Japan had something to do with it.
After I unlocked it, the second drawer on the desk rolled open smoothly without a sound. I felt along the bottom and then the underside. Nothing. I pulled the drawer out, turned it over, and looked for a slight irregularity in the grain. Nothing. There was no compartment. Then I spotted it, alo
ng the back panel—not a compartment, really, just a slit, barely enough for a thin sheet of paper. I looked around for something sharp to slip inside and pull out whatever Pak had kept there. It wasn’t a single sheet but an envelope, made of a sort of thin, fine paper I’d never seen.
A jeep braked sharply; doors slammed. There was a loud exchange as our guards blocked the way. Another car pulled up, and I heard the gate clank open. I quickly replaced the drawer and locked it. I opened the file cabinet, threw the key into the back, and picked up the first thing I saw, a small notebook. The first few pages had some rough entries about the Finn at the Koryo, but otherwise it was blank. Worthless. That’s why Pak had put it on top: wouldn’t fool anyone but might slow them down. In the very back of the file drawer, there was a soft blue cloth bag. I pulled it open. It contained two bundles of hundred-dollar bills. What was Pak doing with so much U.S. currency? All of us kept a little bit, to use in the market or at the diplomatic store, but not like this. I jammed both bundles in my pocket, then put one back in the drawer, closed things up again, and scrambled to my office. Just as I sat down, two men burst through the door. A moment later, Colonel Kim strolled in.
“We seem to be meeting quite often these days, Inspector. Restaurants. The countryside.” Kim looked around my office without interest, as if he’d been there before. “Please remain seated. We are going to remove your chief inspector’s files. He won’t be needing them.” He stopped to watch me. I felt the blood go to my face and a crazy urge to kill him, right then, but instead I sat there without speaking, controlling my heartbeat. “By rights, you should come with us for questioning.” He smiled at the word. “But for some reason, you have a curious, protected status. It won’t last long, I assure you. In the meantime”—I could feel him measuring every detail of how I sat, when I blinked, the way I breathed—“you are free to go to back and forth between your apartment and this office. You understand, I’m sure.”
I decided if I didn’t answer he would think I was scared, so I said, “You have no control over me, Kim. Until I’m told otherwise by the Minister, I don’t take orders from you. And I have work to do. Now, if you don’t mind …” I picked up the sandpaper on my desk and began to sand the piece of wood for the bookcase that Pak had said I would never build. Kim turned to go, but before he did, I saw the knives in his eyes sharpen with anger. At least I had to hope that’s what it was. Anger would make Kim stumble, and the more he stumbled, the angrier he would get. He would lose his focus; I’d seen it happen before with people like him. It was only when he was cold and restrained that he was deadly.
“Don’t forget to lock Pak’s cabinet when you’re done,” I shouted after him. “And don’t mess up the notes about that Finn. We only just put things in there.” I heard Kim shout some orders; furniture crashed on the floor, there were footsteps, and then the hall door slammed shut so hard it rattled the windows. After the jeep pulled away, there was silence, then soft footsteps in the hall. Kim stopped as he reached my door.
“Very good, Inspector.” He stepped into my office. “Just sit. It will make things easier. Most people bolt like rabbits, or die of fear at their desks.”
“You got what you needed, I assume.”
“Yes, I have what I came for.”
“That’s good.” I pushed the envelope across my desk. “Don’t forget this.”
“And what is that?” He wasn’t curious, he was angry. He pointed at my desk as if there were something insulting on it.
I had no idea what was in the envelope, and if Kim even imagined that for an instant, I was dead. He would kill me right here, on the spot. I put my hand on the paper, touched it as if it were completely familiar to me. I couldn’t let a muscle be out of place; Kim would sense it. Every movement had to tell Kim that he was in the one in danger, not me, that I was the one in charge, not him—and that this paper held his fate.
“We both know that important things are happening, Colonel. If they break your way, you can deal with me later. But if the situation breaks my way, and something has happened to me in the meantime, something with your fingerprints on it, you’re finished. And they’ll make sure it hurts.” I didn’t expect him to look worried or even thoughtful. I just wanted to keep talking, to keep touching the envelope, getting the connection established in his eyes and his ears. That envelope was his fate. Not mine, his. I put the envelope down again and moved my hand from it, as if I’d done that before, as if it weren’t the first time I’d had it on my desk.
“Curious-looking paper. I didn’t know your Ministry had anything like that. Special issue?”
“That’s not for you to know. All you have to do is keep it safe. Surely you can do that, Colonel. I don’t much care about the rest of the files, but this you deliver, safe and sound. It’s sealed. That’s how it stays. That’s how you deliver it.”
“I could just take it and you’d never know what happened. I could take it back and have my people open it, then seal it up again.”
“You could also shoot yourself between the eyes. It would be quicker.”
“I could kill you right now, you know, say you tried to run.” He didn’t sound troubled.
“Not now, Colonel. Later, if you like.”
He took a polished gold case from his breast pocket, a remarkably thin case that fit perfectly in his hand. He removed a cigarette, looked at it thoughtfully, then struck a match on the side of my desk. The match flared; the sound seemed to grow beyond the flame, then stopped abruptly as he dropped it on the desktop, near the envelope. We both watched as the match consumed itself.
I could see that Kim was not sure of his next move. The envelope was not something he’d planned for. He looked around the room, then up at the ceiling. “Too bad.”
“What?” I thought he meant that the envelope hadn’t burned.
He struck another match and lit the cigarette, inhaling slowly so the tobacco at the tip glowed for a long time. “Too bad you’ll never know what that molding was meant to be.” He coughed, dropped the cigarette to the floor, and ground it under the heel of his boot.
I picked up the envelope and lazily fanned the cigarette smoke away from the desk. “Take it, Kim. Deliver it to one person and one person only.”
“Are you giving me orders, Inspector? I think not.” But there was no edge to his tone.
“A simple chain of custody. From me to you. From you”—I paused and then heard what I knew I’d say all along—“to my brother.”
Kim’s lips pulled back in a half snarl. “I don’t work for you. And I don’t work for your brother.”
I dropped the envelope onto the desk. Kim stood there, rigid, his mind tumbling as he tried to regain his balance. He picked up the envelope with a quick motion. “What’s in it?”
“Names, dates.”
“Meaning you don’t know.”
“If I were you, Kim, I wouldn’t start to gamble so late in my career.” Kim was waiting. He was waiting for me to swallow too hard, breathe too deep, blink my eyes too fast—anything that would tell him that I was nervous, that I was lying, that I was a dead man.
I remembered my grandfather. I remembered the trees lining the road in front of our village. I remembered how, the first time the old man had taken me with him to Pyongyang, I’d watched the setting sun run alongside the train. It had turned red as it touched the horizon, then flared against the paddies so they sparkled like a jeweled necklace reaching to the hills. That calmed me. I could afford to blink my eyes. Kim turned toward the window, maybe to give himself a moment to think. It was the wrong move, and he knew it right away. In the half second it took him to turn back to me, it was too late. The rhythm had changed. I wasn’t about to let it shift back again. The only thing to do was to press him, change the subject slightly, make him respond to me. “You made a mistake, Colonel. You thought you could scare me on that hillside.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You shot one of Kang’s men, machine-gunned a wo
unded man. First you blew up the Reunification Highway.”
“Inspector, I’m surprised at you. I’m operating under orders. The blue car was illegal. It was coming from the south. It might have been an enemy agent for all I knew. Maybe even an assassin. We protected the leadership. You were a witness to that.”
“No, I saw something else.”
“Is that right? You and who else?”
“You know who. The local security man, Li.”
“Yes, Li. Must have been a shock to him. He died not long after. It looks like it was a heart attack. You knew him? My condolences. And you, Inspector, you worked for a man who was killed in a firefight with an operations team performing its duty to arrest an enemy of the state. Two enemies, actually.”
“So, you finally made your move against Kang.” I paused. It was time to double the bluff—and it better be convincing. “It may not be soon enough. A report on your car-smuggling operation is waiting to be passed up the line, along with evidence that it was carried out with the help of South Korean intelligence. Kang will gladly corroborate it. When I hear from my brother that you have delivered this envelope to him, I tell someone to pull it back. If I don’t give the word, the report is released twelve hours from now. And if that report is released, it doesn’t matter which way events break. You’ll be dead either way. Any questions?”
Kim turned abruptly, his boots thudded down the stairs, the door slammed, and then it was quiet. From my window, I saw him leaning against his car, catching his breath, putting the anger back where it wouldn’t get in his way. He climbed in and shut the car door carefully, and when the car finally started, it moved down the street so slowly it barely got out of first gear. The big engine throbbed, a low, menacing sound. Kim wanted me to hear it—the restraint.